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Dude Ranch - NOT AVAILABLE

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Brief Synopsis

Chester Carr(Stuart Erwin), owner of a dude ranch in the Rockies, caters to guests seeking the thrill of the Wild West. Among his guests are the wealthy Spruce Meadows(Charles Sellon) and his daughter Susan(June Collyer.)But the West isn't wild anymore and most of Carr's guests are bored and about to leave.He is in despair when a caravan carrying a broke-down-and-out troupe of actors---Jennifer(Jack Oakie), Judd(Eugene Pallette), Mrs. Merridew(Cecil Weston) and her daughter, Alice(Mitzi Green)---crashes down the hill and wrecks the hotel sign. Carr offers to board and lodge them free for a week if they can provide enough excitement to keep Meadows and the other guest from leaving. The actors agree. They have the properties and costumes for a Western melodrama,"Vance Kilroy's Revenge", which they proceed to adapt real-life for the occassion.That evening a woman(Mrs. Merridew)rushes into the hotel lounge with her little daughter(Alice), begging to be saved from the whip of her brutal husband Black Jud(Judd.)He cmes after them with a whip but the heroic Vance Kilroy(Jennifer)arrives and saves them. Black Jed leaves, shaking his fists, trimming his moustache and vowing to return.The visitors swallow the hoax, and edcide to return. Jeniffer(as Vance Kiroy) falls in love with Susan, but she sees through his fale baravado and snubs him. A gang of bandits, planning to rob the local bank, arrives as hotel guests.Burson(George Webb), the "ladies' man" dandy of the group takes a shine to Susan. When "Black Jed" returns, he is pursued and "strangled" by "Kilroy" but Burson openly shows his disbelief in the hero. Having being "killed" as "Black Jed", Judd re-appears the next morning as a Sioux Indian chief. When the bank robbery is committed, one of the gang wears a costume similar to Jennifers, and suspicion is cast on him.Sheriff Simonson(Guy Oliver) arrives and arrests Jennifer, but Alice sees the bandits kidnap Susan, and she convinces the wooden-headed sheriff that he has arrested the wrong man. Jennifer joins the posse in pursuit of the fleeing gangsters.The ads, in London, carried a blurb from the Sunday Times reviewer in which he called the film..."Quite the funniest and brainest satire of American cowboy Wild West stuff I have ever seen..." "Ruggles of Red Gap" in 1935 probably knocked him for a loop.Quite-ho like.

Elderly Spruce Meadows and his daughter Susan are about to leave the Six-Gun Rancho dude ranch out of sheer boredom when, without their knowledge, the owner of the ranch, Chester Carr, hires a troupe of actors to impersonate characters of the old West and cause some excitement among the guests. The men of the troupe, Jenifer and Judd, and the women, Mrs. Merridew and her precocious little daughter Alice, successfully enact the melodrama, Revenge , causing Spruce and his friends to continue their vacation. Spruce admires Jenifer, who pretends to be macho cowboy Vance Kilroy, and Jenifer falls in love with Susan, who is the only guest that knows he is an actor. Gangsters Burson, Blaze Denton and their thugs check into the ranch, intending to rob the nearby Elbow Creek bank that week. Burson accidentally gets some ink on Jenifer's sleeve, and when Jenifer asks him to apologize, he refuses, and almost draws his gun. Jenifer is completely unaware of how close he came to being shot until Susan tells him she admires him for his bravery. The actors' next plan is to pretend to rob the hotel safe. One day, the gangsters rob the Elbow Creek bank, and frame Jenifer for the robbery. They create a perfect alibi for themselves, but Jenifer is out attempting to ride a horse that keeps throwing him. Riding back from the robbery, Burson runs into Susan and joins her in her search for Jenifer, but when he finds him, he only humiliates him, and Jenifer decides to leave the rancho because he has lost Susan's respect. Carr mistakes the sheriff for Judd and reveals their hotel robbery plans, and the sheriff, unaware that "Vance Kilroy" does not really exist, arrests Jenifer when they find the robbery money in his valise. The gangsters switch valises and kidnap Susan, then try to make their getaway. Little Alice witnesses the kidnapping and realizes that she accidentally gave Jenifer the wrong valise when he asked her to bring his stage make-up case. Jenifer, Judd, Carr, Meadows and Alice assault the sheriff, forcing his car to stop, and Jenifer pursues the gangsters, who are in his truck. Jenifer leaps onto the truck, knocks out the driver and fights with Burson. The truck rushes headlong downhill, without brakes, and crashes onto some train tracks. Susan jumps out, and Burson hits Jenifer so hard he falls from the truck just before the train demolishes it, killing Burson. Susan rushes to Jenifer, her admiration and love renewed.